William Tell

Tell is arrested for not saluting Gessler's hat (mosaic at the Swiss National Museum, Hans Sandreuter, 1901) William Tell (German: Wilhelm Tell, pronounced [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈtɛl] ; French: Guillaume Tell; Italian: Guglielmo Tell(o); Romansh: Guglielm Tell) is a legendary folk hero of Switzerland. He is known for shooting an apple off his son's head.

According to the legend, Tell was an expert mountain climber and marksman with a crossbow who assassinated Albrecht Gessler, a tyrannical reeve of the Austrian dukes of the House of Habsburg positioned in Altdorf, in the canton of Uri. Tell's defiance and tyrannicide encouraged the population to open rebellion and to make a pact against the foreign rulers with neighbouring Schwyz and Unterwalden, marking the foundation of the Swiss Confederacy, of which Tell is consequently considered the father.